Structure dataset 36: Angolar

The Portuguese-based language Angolar is spoken by approximatively 5,000 people in the southwestern and the southeastern part of the island of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea. It is a maroon creole, that is, a creole that was spoken by slaves who escaped from slavery and rebuilt their own society in regions where they were free from the slave owners. Some Angolar speakers also live on Principe Island as well as in Portugal, especially in Lisbon.

It is not clear whether the language is still being passed on to the newer generations; the pressure from Santome, the other creole language spoken on the island, and from Portuguese is very strong.

Though Angolar is not mutually intelligible with Santome, it is closely related to and most probably derived from it (as the other two creole languages of the Gulf of Guinea, Principense and Fa d’Ambô). What characterizes Angolar is that an important part of its vocabulary is of Bantu, especially of Kimbundu origin. Note, however, that this influence concerns mostly the lexicon and not the morphosyntax of the language.

The default lect chosen for APiCS is the variety of speakers who at the time of my main fieldwork (in the early 1990s) were 50 years or older.